


The Wedding Past

by Bold_as_Brass



Series: Time and Weddings [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 1980s, Alternative Perspective, Angst and Humor, Dubious Consent, First Meetings, First Time, Glory Hole, Inspired by Real Events, M/M, Pre-Canon, Semi-Public Sex, cottaging
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-08
Updated: 2016-01-31
Packaged: 2018-03-16 01:13:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3468911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bold_as_Brass/pseuds/Bold_as_Brass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>November 1986. Mycroft has just graduated from University. London lies before him and two incompatible worlds await. The first is the seedy, thrilling, world of cottaging - meeting strangers in public lavatories for anonymous sex. The second is a career in the secret service, but gay men are barred from holding high security posts. The consequences of discovery would be catastrophic and the police are always on the lookout for easy arrests. Rumours about police entrapment abound and soon a dark-eyed young man begins to frequent Mycroft’s haunts. He’s gorgeous; he’s also - quite obviously -  a police officer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. November 1986

**Author's Note:**

> Set almost thirty years before the events of _The Wedding Present_.

The first time was a mistake. It was November 1986, the Beaujolais nouveau had arrived in London and celebrations were in full swing. Mycroft had joined a drunken group of stockbrokers for a late lunch at an overpriced restaurant in Soho. They had been drinking since a minute past midnight and had no intention of stopping. No one in the group knew which of them had invited Mycroft but fortunately they were too drunk to realise that no one had. They didn’t like him. Though he’d gone to their schools he wasn’t one of them. His plain white shirt, three piece suit and pocket watch marked him as a relic of a bygone era, an outsider in the midst of their loud ties, red braces and Rolexes. And in any case, they were used to thinking of themselves as the youngest and brightest of their generation. Mycroft, just nineteen and already graduated from Cambridge with a first in Modern Languages, dented that belief.

Well aware of their feelings, he listened intently and spoke little, pushing a slice of kiwi fruit around his plate without ever tasting it. He responded to their half-hearted offers of Beaujolais with pleas of a delicate stomach and sipped instead from a large glass of Evian water. When he left they barely realised he was gone, though he had managed to discover more about a persistent allegation of insider trading than two Select Committees and one full Public Inquiry.

It was not a long walk back to the Treasury offices, but by the time Mycroft reached Shaftesbury Avenue the litre of Evian was making its presence felt. At Piccadilly Circus he took the opportunity to detour into a convenient Wimpy’s and race upstairs to use their facilities. He didn’t normally frequent burger bars but the matter had become urgent. The men’s lavatories were fuller than he expected for a Thursday afternoon. A dozen men were inside - business types, students, a few obvious tourists - and the urinals were fully occupied. He took the first empty cubicle instead, locked the door, rested his briefcase on the cistern and unbuttoned with a sigh of relief.

He was mid-stream when he had the first inkling all was not well. A movement caught his eye. When he looked, there was a cock, quite unmistakably an erect penis, poking from the cubicle wall. He snapped his eyes forward, stunned, then stole another glance. It was still there: the head and an inch or so of shaft poking, pink and fleshy, through a hole in the wall. As he watched it began to retreat. The movement reminded him of a snail withdrawing into its shell.  
  
“Psst,” someone said. The voice came from the adjacent cubicle.  
  
Mycroft finished, buttoned up then, insanely curious, crouched, being careful to keep his trouser legs from brushing the filthy floor. The hole was about four inches in diameter and three foot from the ground. The positioning was not accidental, he surmised. The height and dimensions were suggestive. More to the point, the edges had been covered in black gaffer tape to smooth off any sharp corners.  
  
“Psst,” said the voice again.  
  
Carefully, carefully, he shifted sideways. Through the hole he could see a mouth. It had red lips surrounded by a sandy coloured beard. The lips moved, revealing uneven teeth.  
  
“I need sucking off,” the mouth said.  
  
Mycroft stood so quickly his vision went black. By the time he had recovered, the cock had poked a few inches back into his cubicle. It looked, if a cock could be said to look such a thing, expectant. This was an imposition too far. No matter what his thoughts about other mens' cocks, he did not expect to have them thrust upon him without his prior agreement. He picked up his briefcase and without pausing for thought, slammed it against the offending appendage. A howl of anguish came from the far side of the wall. He shot from the cubicle and was out of the room and down the stairs in a flash. Peals of laughter followed his exit. He wasn’t sure if they were directed at him or the cock’s unfortunate owner.

 

* * *

 

Back at the Treasury, he made his way to one of the lesser-used bathrooms on the top floor, washed his hands and rinsed his face. Ablutions complete, he stood at the window and looked down onto the large central courtyard, considering once again the vexed question of his sexuality. He had reached puberty in the early eighties. It had been a miserable adolescence, full of sexual frustration, with very few companions his own age and none his intellectual equal. Sherlock was his only companion and a six year old boy, no matter how bright, was not a suitable confidant for his most pressing concerns.

Cambridge, supposedly a haven for youthful experimentation, had happened to him too soon. He had gone up the autumn before he turned seventeen. His age had barred him from many of the most notorious clubs and societies and his looks were not such that any of his peers had felt moved to seek him out for his personal charms. In his final year, when he at last had begun to fill out and develop a degree of poise, he'd had brief, unsatisfactory flings with one or two of the female undergraduates where he had, in retrospect, been unthinkingly cruel. The unhappy experience had convinced him that his inclinations lay predominantly elsewhere.

He had thought when he moved to London that matters might improve, but the gay scene was underground and difficult for an outsider to stumble upon. Hope came in the shape of a magazine stall tucked away in a side street between Euston and St Pancras. Hardcore gay pornography nestled between copies of _Life_ and the _Wall Street Journal_. After walking by five times, he’d plucked up the courage to snatch up a copy of _Gay Times,_ almost throwing his money at the attendant in his hurry to escape. There were contact advertisements by men for men in the back pages but it was not at all clear how he might receive letters or entertain visitors. He lodged with his Aunt Margaret in a garden flat in Richmond. He would have preferred to live with his Uncle Rudy who had a charming apartment near Tower Bridge, but his parents had forbidden it and while he was technically an adult he was still young enough that such strictures carried weight.

Had Aunt Margaret been his only concern however, he could have found a solution. There were, after all, such things as Post Office boxes and hotel rooms. His allowance was not large but it might, with prudent budgeting, have stretched to contain them. Unfortunately, she was not. While sexual acts between two men in private premises had been legal for almost twenty years, Mycroft, at nineteen, was still two years below the age of consent. More to the point, homosexuality was a strict bar to entry into the Security Service. Fear of entrapment and blackmail by Soviet agents meant transgressors faced instant dismissal, criminal prosecution and disgrace. His linguistic talents had not gone unnoticed. He was fluent in French, Italian and Russian, familiar with most of the West Slavic languages and young enough to be expected to pick up Mandarin Chinese without too much trouble. His unpaid role at the Treasury had been arranged by his tutors as a useful diversion during the six months it would take for the authorities to process his application.

In such circumstances, writing to an unknown man for the express purposes of meeting for sex would be foolish. Letters could be intercepted and read. Arranging to meet would be even more risky. Were he ever questioned about it, his intentions could not be plausibly denied. So there he had stopped. Until today. Now it appeared that men, possibly numerous men, were meeting in public toilets for what by necessity must be quick, anonymous, casual sex. If it were true, it appeared ideal for his purposes - had he but the nerve to try it.

He stared down at the empty courtyard at the heart of the Treasury. Of course for his plan to work, he would need to refrain from hitting potential partners with his briefcase. The absurdity of the memory made him laugh. Then, equally quickly, he sobered and made his decision. He was nineteen years old. He was not prepared to spend his entire life celibate. There were six months at least before he would have to make a final decision about his future path. In the meantime he would simply have to be very careful and very clever. Fortunately he was both.

* * *

 

Once he knew what to look for, he saw the signs everywhere. There were holes in the walls of cubicles in shopping centres, at Victoria coach station and in the pubs around Trafalgar Square. There was even one in the bathrooms in the basement of the Treasury. He reported it to Facilities: there was such a thing as not shitting on your own doorstep. It became increasingly obvious also that the activity didn’t always stay inside the stalls. There was a Portacabin in Shepherds Bush which could be seen rocking on its foundations every Friday night and the toilets in Hyde Park Central were so busy that any hapless tourist hoping to use them for their designated purpose faced a very long wait.

Through observation, deduction and occasionally helpful graffiti, he pieced together how the system worked. It was a world with its own language and etiquette. The holes in the cubicle walls were known as glory-holes; the buildings in which they were housed, cottages, an allusion to the appearance of the traditional Victorian-era toilet blocks. Two fingers through the hole meant that you were interested in sucking your neighbour off. Your hand or a sheet of paper held against it meant that you weren’t, although you might get sworn at if you didn’t at least provide a quick hand job. If he was interpreting the graffiti correctly, there were other activities which also went on through the glory-holes, but the positions depicted seemed rather athletic for his current level of experience and he put them to one side for future consideration.

Unfortunately, enlightening as all this was, it brought him no closer to his goal. The cottaging scene of central London was fast-paced and confident with little patience for hesitation or first time nerves and there was always the underlying fear that he might bump into someone he knew. It seemed wise to choose a less frenetic location to make his début. After careful consideration he settled on a cottage in Ealing. It was an area in gentle decline, less than half an hour on the tube from Westminster, but still a world away from leafy Richmond or trendy Soho. The cottage itself was a single story Victorian building, half sunk into the ground and surrounded by an overgrown hedge of dense laurel. It stood to one side of the common, close to the tube. Around it was a park covered in sparse grass and dotted with benches. Interested parties could sit in the park under the pretence of waiting for their train, park up in a side street or loiter at the bus stop opposite and watch until someone interesting went in.

Down the shallow stairs, the single room was cool and dim. It was mopped twice a day by a taciturn Hungarian, an ex-POW called István who took his job seriously, and the pine scent of disinfectant mingled with the sharp lemon of urinal cubes and the smell of wet laurel. The interior was a shrine to the innate Victorian love of decoration. The walls were covered in ceramic tiles - green to shoulder height and cream above with a rail of imitation St Anne marble separating them. The crest of the District of Ealing was picked out in a mosaic in the floor by the entrance. A modern long urinal to one side faced several dark wood cubicles, two connected by a glory-hole with spy-holes in the doors to boot. To the far end, an alcove contained a row of three magnificent Victorian sinks beneath a long high window. A broad sill extending along each side of the alcove provided space for the Victorian gentleman to rest his hat and cane while he adjusted his clothing, prior to re-joining polite society.

It wasn't just the location which attracted him, however. Ealing provided a smorgasbord of all that London had to offer. There were students from Malaysia, Egypt and Nigeria; married sales reps with cars parked close by; local youths in search of admirers; joggers out for a run on the common; tradesmen on their way home from a job and the occasional business type, like Mycroft, popping in during a long lunch break. From lunch time until the pubs reopened at six thirty it would be quite busy. For some it was a social event, an opportunity to chat with old friends and keep up to date on the gossip about celebrity sightings, police raids and recent arrests. Rumours about police entrapment abounded. It was said the Met picked the youngest, prettiest policemen to entice their prey into displaying their cocks before they arrested them. There were whispers that some of them even had a play around themselves before their colleagues were in a position to witness, though Mycroft treated those with a pinch of salt.

Most visitors though, were there for sex, not conversation. Some liked the glory-holes, the excitement of not knowing who might arrive next door. Others preferred to wait until they saw something fit and either took them into one of the cubicles or, if they were more extrovert, got it on in the alcove while a crowd watched. The more circumspect could try to catch the eye of a potential partner before they went to sit on a bench in the park. If the object of their desire came to sit beside them, a brief conversation might lead to a tryst in the laurels, or somewhere more private, if one of them lived nearby.

Given this torrid atmosphere of sexual licence, it became a matter of some concern to Mycroft that after two weeks he remained virtually untouched. The issue boiled down to a problem of classification. He looked, he knew, both older and younger than his age and in the interests of maintaining his privacy he said very little. More to the point though, he didn’t know how to classify himself. His inexperience was his greatest curse. He didn’t know what to ask for and he wasn’t sure what he wanted. He liked, he thought, to watch, but opportunities were relatively rare. It was possible of course to use the spyholes or even to balance on a toilet and look over the partition but that seemed like a recipe for disaster and undignified to boot. If he used the glory-holes he was guaranteed relief but he craved more a physical contact, a warm body rather than just a warm mouth.  But not, he thought, just _any_ body. A particular type of body. A particular type of man. But what type? His ignorance was frustrating, and beneath the frustration he was always aware that the time when MI5 would come calling was coming ever closer and that he was no nearer to knowing which path to choose.

* * *

 

His luck changed one lunch time in mid December. A labourer from some nearby road works cut across the common and raced down the cottage steps. It was a raw, grey day but he wore just a T-shirt, a muddy pair of jeans and rigger boots. His skin was red from the cold and he steamed in the winter air. Mycroft had given up on the cottage and was huddled by the tube entrance waiting for his train. He was across the park and down the steps before his brain had caught up with what his feet were doing.

Inside the cottage was even dimmer than usual. The low wattage light bulbs made barely a dent in the December murk. A few men were waiting by the entrance and he could just make out the bulk of the labourer standing at the middle of the urinal. His hands were busy on his cock but he wasn’t pissing.

Mycroft knew the routine by now, even though he’d never tried it himself.  He took his place at one end of the urinal and opened his fly. His fingers were numb from the cold and he fumbled with his buttons. Close to the labourer was a giant, six inches taller than Mycroft, and massive shouldered.  Mycroft could smell him - engine oil and bitumen and fresh sweat – and as his eyes adjusted he could see him too - tattoos on his forearms and a spider web tattooed around each elbow. He held his cock in one hand and was wanking it slowly. It was dark red, hard and slightly greasy looking.

The Giant looked up and caught Mycroft’s eye. “Dreich, aye?” he said, apparently friendly.

Mycroft nodded.

“Ye wannae gae?”

Mycroft stared. Three years of studying Indo-European languages had done nothing to prepare him for broad Glaswegian.

The Giant clicked his tongue in impatience. “D’ye wanna gae?” he repeated slowly, waving his cock in his hand in explanation.

“I do,” said a voice from the alcove, “if he don’t.” It was one of the local lads, skinny and pale with a dark rat’s tail of hair down his back and eyes as round as saucers at the sight of this behemoth.

The Giant shrugged. “Aye, okay."

Mycroft’s jaw dropped at this barefaced theft but it was too late to protest, they had already taken themselves to the far end of the alcove. He pulled up his trousers and hurried into the alcove. Rat-tail was already on his knees sucking the Giant’s cock by the time he arrived.

The lunch time rush had begun in earnest and in no time an audience had gathered. A number of them had their cocks out and were wanking off. Emboldened Mycroft joined them. The Giant was leaning back against the sinks, his jeans shoved down round his knees and both hands cupping Rat- tail’s head. He was thick around the waist and heavy thighed. It was the body of a man who spent his days in hard manual labour, shovelling cement and pushing wheelbarrows. Mycroft’s cock swelled in his hand at the thought. By the time the Giant hauled Rat-tail to his feet, spun him round and bent him over a sink, he was starting to pant.

He hadn’t seen someone get fucked before. He hadn’t realised that it felt good, but he could tell by the noise that Rat-tail made when the Giant thrust into him that it must do. It must feel very good indeed. Someone pushed by, jostling him against the wall, and a third man was kneeling beneath the sink, his mouth greedily open to take Rat-tail’s cock, his eyes closed in bliss, his hand already fumbling at his trousers.

“Lucky bastard,” someone muttered.

Mycroft agreed. Lucky, lucky Rat-tail. The cold porcelain pressed against his belly, rough hands gripping his hips, hard cock in his arse, hot mouth on his cock. Serviced by two men at once.

“Fuckin’ hell,” someone said. "Would you look at that?"

Mycroft ignored them. He didn't want to talk; he just wanted to watch. The Giant was thrusting harder now, the muscles in his arse and thighs flexing magnificently. The heat of the assembled bodies had caused the windows to steam up and Mycroft was perspiring freely beneath his suit.

“Jesus, lads,” said someone else. “We've found the Loch Ness Monster.”

That comment made him look up. Half of the room was still watching the miniature orgy taking place a few metres away. The other half was staring at his crotch. He glanced down at his cock, then back around the alcove. He wasn't much longer than anyone else in the room but he was thicker. Much thicker. Unusually thick, judging by their expressions. He hadn't realised it mattered. The adverts in _Gay Times_ always specified length, never girth.

Behind them the Giant grunted and swore loudly and everyone’s attention snapped towards him. Rat-tail’s legs stiffened, his feet left the floor and he kicked like a frog. Fortunately the sinks were of sturdy Victorian construction designed to withstand rough treatment. There were a few busy moments in the alcove then a general sigh and zipping up. Mycroft was left holding his throbbing cock, feeling like he’d missed the bus and wondering what he was supposed to do. Rat’s tail was kneeling again, returning the favour to the man who’d sucked him off but Mycroft had no interest in either of them. The Giant had pulled up his trousers and was moping his forehead on his T-shirt. He caught Mycroft's eye.

“C’mere, laddie,” he said, not unkindly, and with one massive hand he took Mycroft by the wrist and pulled him a cubicle. His bulk took up most of the space, Mycroft crammed into one corner. So it was there, crushed against a wall in Ealing Common cottage that he had his first time. A thick leg pushed between his thighs, a damp T-shirt pressed against his cheek, the taste of sweat and dust, the rich stench of tar, and a rough, hard hand wringing his cock. It didn't take very long and he was steaming himself by the time they'd finished.

“Reet,” said the Giant wiping his hand on his jeans. “Back tae it then.”

“Happy Christmas,” said Mycroft leaning against the partition. It was one of the few times in his life he ever meant it.

After that sex became easier. Mycroft still preferred to watch but rumours about his cock circulated. Some of the regulars took to calling him Nessie and there was always someone willing to give him a show, then take him to one side and finish him off. And he’d discovered a liking for working class men - rough trade. He preferred their honest sweat and vigour to the narrow-waisted City workers with their braying voices ,and their Filofaxes, and the tiny particles of cocaine sparkling on their upper lips. But still he wasn't sure if that was all he liked, and he still wasn't sure what he’d choose when the Security Services came knocking in four month's time.

 


	2. January 1987

The New Year brought profound changes. Mycroft knew something was different as soon as he entered the cottage. The sound of voices raised in excited laughter and the almost carnival atmosphere alerted him. He spotted the reason for the excitement instantly. They had a newcomer. He was wearing tight stonewashed jeans with a rip at one knee and sporting a bleached blond mullet. Despite these drawbacks, he was gorgeous - all laughing brown eyes and easy smile. He was also quite obviously a plain clothes police officer. It was his boots which gave him away. They were standard Met-issue steel toe caps, well-worn but lovingly polished, in stark contrast to the rest of his carefully cultivated dishevelment. The jeans, judging by their snug fit, were his own. The boots meant he was on duty and expecting trouble. No room for a radio in that outfit; he must have a colleague nearby.

No one else in the present company raised his suspicions. It was the usual lunch time crowd of students and shift workers. The policeman was standing to one side of the alcove, leaning easily against the wall with his elbows resting up on the sill. The pose pulled his shirt tight across his chest in a way that probably wasn't accidental. He had already attracted quite the group of admirers. With his blond hair and good looks he seemed almost luminous; a golden Apollo come to visit the underworld. The group surrounding him, all perfectly normal looking men, were trolls by comparison capering for his delight. He wasn't saying much, just smiling at some of the more outrageous banter. But then he didn't have to, Mycroft thought with a surge of bitterness that surprised him with its strength. The beautiful didn't need to be clever; their role was to be courted, fêted and adored.

The intensity of his gaze made itself known. The policeman looked up from laughing at some inane piece of celebrity gossip, glanced towards the cottage entrance and caught Mycroft’s eye. It was a horrific mistake. He should have pretended to use the urinal or better, just turned on his heel and left. Instead he stood rooted to the floor; his heart pounding in his ears. The policeman held his gaze for a moment, his expression thoughtful. Then with an easy athleticism he pushed away from the wall and walked in Mycroft’s direction.

Against all reason Mycroft let him approach, half-hypnotised by the shift of his hips. The policeman came to a halt a few feet away. He was an inch or so shorter than Mycroft but liberal application of hair spray and natural confidence made him seem taller. Up close, the impression of a golden youth was even more marked. His hair was streaked in tones of bronze and copper in contrast to his dark eyes and eyebrows. His skin still showed the vestiges of a tan, sun bed  or souvenir of some late holiday. His open shirt collar, undone a button further than correct form would dictate, allowed a glimpse of his smooth sun-kissed chest. He stared at Mycroft for a second, and then pulled a packet of cigarettes from his back pocket.

“Got a light?” he said. He put a cigarette between his lips and grinned.

Abruptly, the spell was broken. His voice was disappointing. Light, faintly nasal. Greater London or maybe north Kent. Comprehensive school, or a grammar just possibly. Certainly not university educated but not working class either. As he leaned closer, Mycroft caught a blast of his aftershave - Kouros. He almost laughed in relief. Louche, overtly sexual. Irredeemably tacky. _Common_. Very different to the honest sweat and tar of the road workers or the light eau de colognes he sometimes wore.

“No,” he said. “No, thank you. I don’t…” he let his eyes wander the length of the policeman’s body, lingering where his faded jeans moulded to his hips and thighs, resting for a moment at his crotch, where the denim had worn nearly white. “I don’t smoke.” He didn't curl his lip, he didn't have to. The contempt was apparent in his voice.

The insult struck home. The policeman cocked his head in surprise. His smile faded. He took the cigarette from his mouth and replaced it in the packet.

“My mistake,” he said. “You’re probably a bit young for that kind of thing, aren't you?”

Mycroft’s face grew hot at the implication but the policeman had turned and sauntered back towards  his group of admirers before he could come up with a suitably withering response. There was a second rip across the buttock of his jeans. The frayed edges of the fabric gaped as he walked. Mycroft realised with chagrin that his mouth was hanging open. He shut it with a snap and made good his escape.

Out in the safety of the park, he sat on one of the benches and took slow, deep breaths of the cold air, seeking to clear lungs of the heady mix of Kouros, disinfectant and smoke. At the bus stop opposite a middle aged man in a long donkey jacket, ten years out of date, was taking a profound interest in the bus time table. As Mycroft watched, the 207 appeared on the horizon and trundled slowly down the road. Donkey jacket was still waiting when it pulled away. Was this a second policeman? It seemed unlikely; his movements were jerky and he was sweating visibly despite the January chill. A family man perhaps, unable to pluck up the courage to try his luck in the cottage.

Mycroft dismissed him from mind and focussed on a more promising candidate. A blue Rover SD1, parked in a side street next to a newsagent. It was heavy on the back wheels with two rear view mirrors and no dealer stickers on the windows. A standard unmarked Metropolitan Police car, in fact.  A single burly figure sat inside. Mycroft could make out a moustache and a fleece lined lapel but little of his face.

In itself the presence of a police car wouldn't have alarmed him, but taken in tandem the inference was obvious. Someone in the Clubs and Vice Unit had decided to boost their crime figures by arresting a dozen gay men for importuning. They’d found themselves a very pretty policeman, Mycroft would grant them that. It wouldn't take long for someone to make him an offer. Then he’d  simply take them outside into the laurel bushes and -wham! The trap would be sprung. His colleague would arrive, witness the interaction and they’d all take a quick drive down to Ealing police station.

Intellectually, Mycroft could see the logic. It was an efficient way to gain convictions: a hundred percent detection rate. But for its targets it meant a brief, shameful court appearance, a guilty plea, a fine and the terrifying possibility of seeing their name in the papers. Dangerous for almost anyone. Almost certainly lethal for the aspirations of a young man hoping to join the security service. He watched the cottage entrance for the best part of an hour but no one emerged. Possibly the aftershave was acting as a deterrent. At one-thirty he crossed to the newsagent to buy a paper for the train back to Whitehall. The moustached man in the blue Rover didn't look very happy either.

 

* * *

 

Mycroft didn't have long to wait before his suspicions were confirmed. In a few weeks rumours began to circulate about a new police Superintendent hoping to make his mark cleaning up London’s public conveniences amid concerns about public health. A couple of minor soap actors were caught soliciting as was - if the Whitehall grapevine could be believed (and it always could ) - a not so minor royal, though that was swiftly hushed up. Most of those arrested pleaded guilty in the Magistrates Court in the hope of avoiding publicity. One had his pictures in the papers anyway; a man of the cloth. Let off with a seventy-five pound fine for a first offence. Mycroft recognised the donkey jacket if not the face. Not a family man then, a vicar. Well that explained his fashion sense.

In truth he felt little compassion for those who had been arrested and more than a little contempt. Had they been clever they would have seen the signs and avoided arrest. The police at least had the justification of doing their jobs; those caught were pursuing their own pleasure, and by their carelessness risked ruining it for everyone. Still, having worked hard to find a cottage so suited to his needs, he was loath to lose it quite so easily. After a little thought he came up with two obvious solutions. The first was to find a way to warn regulars at the cottage that there was an enemy in their midst. If no one was to take the bait then with luck the police would give up and seek richer pickings elsewhere. The problem was that such a warning might shut down all activity; effectively doing the police’s job for them.

The second was more risky but more efficient. He could beard the lion in its den and tell the policeman his cover was blown. One brief conversation, correctly handled, and that would be the end of it. Wrongly handled of course and he could find himself in very hot water indeed . He mulled the problem over for a few days, but was unable to reach a decision. In the absence of any other suitable confident he resorted to consulting with Sherlock, raising the issue in an oblique fashion the next time he went to visit his parents. The conversation was complicated by Sherlock climbing a tree in the orchard at the time.

“ _’Il faut toujours aller au-devant de ses ennemis et leur faire bonne mine; sans cela ils croient qu'on les redoute et cela leur donne de l'audace,_ ’” he called from on high.

“Wasn't that Napoleon?” said Mycroft, rather doubtfully. He wasn't sure that France’s greatest general was a suitable authority for what was, at heart, a very English problem.

“ _Grand-mère_ was French,” said Sherlock with the strange talent he sometimes had for discerning Mycroft’s thoughts. He appeared from the bare branches of the apple tree with a speed that made Mycroft’s heart squeeze in terror, hanging upside from his knees.

“Yes,” said Mycroft. “Sherlock, what is that on your face?”

“It’s tar,” said Sherlock. “I’m being a pirate.”

“Aren't you a little old for that?” Even upside down, Sherlock contrived to look mulish. “A French pirate?” said Mycroft, seeking to make amends.

“ _Oui, un corsair_.”

“ _Très bien_ ,” said Mycroft. “However whilst authentic, I’m not sure _Maman_ will approve,” and he took his protesting pirate brother for a wash before tea.

* * *

 

Child though Sherlock was, Mycroft had to concede there was something to be said for his counsel of boldness in the face of the enemy. The next weekend he bought himself a tracksuit from a market in Brick Lane, a nasty shapeless affair in electric blue and aquamarine, and a pair of cheap running shoes. He took the following week off at short notice with  no particular guilt; the Treasury had received extremely good value from him to date. He arrived at the cottage at about ten on Monday morning. The cubicle nearest the entrance didn't have a glory hole but it did have a spyhole which looked onto the long urinal. He sat on the closed lid of the toilet and read the _People’s Daily_ to practice his Chinese. When it got too cold he went for a brief trot around the park, keeping an eye out for the blue Rover. For the remainder of the time, he sat and waited.

On the third day his patience was rewarded. Just before midday, confident footsteps rang out on the mosaic tiles. Though the spyhole, the policeman hove into view. His hair was spiked extra high this morning and the nauseating aftershave was in full evidence, overpowering even István’s disinfectant.  He was wearing the same jeans, paired this time with a white cotton T shirt, shrunk a little too tight, with the arms ripped off. His tan was darker on his shoulders than his upper arms. He had been on holiday then. A package tour to Torremolinos, or somewhere equally delightful no doubt, to lie on the beach drinking Sangria and to pick up a sombrero and a straw donkey before he came home. Mycroft wondered that he wasn't cold in the unheated cottage - his own fingers were numb despite the tracksuit – but vitality and natural confidence seemed to insulate him. He glanced towards the closed door of Mycroft’s cubicle then went to stand by the alcove entrance, irritatingly just out of sight.

He didn't have long to wait. They were soon joined by a tall man with a pronounced limp. Mycroft recognised him as a taxi driver from Southall. He liked to drop in between fares for a cigarette break and any other amusement that might present itself.

“Got a light?” the policeman said. There was the scratch of a match on a box and the smell of cigarette smoke. “Ta.” They had a few minutes low conversation then Mycroft heard him ask: “You want to go outside - somewhere a bit more private?” Mycroft couldn't see his smile but he could hear it in his voice.

“I've not got time. I’m working,” said the taxi driver.

There was a little more negotiation but then one of the lunchtime joggers arrived, more amendable to the offer of a quick shag. The taxi driver took him into the cubicle next door and soon a muffled thumping shook the adjoining wall. Through the spyhole Mycroft saw the policeman come to the mouth of the alcove and watch the door with a thoughtful frown. He could arrest them for importuning but he was on dubious legal grounds without another officer present; not to mention the risks in attempting to apprehend two men at once. The policeman came to a similar conclusion. He ran his fingers though his hair, preparing himself for his next encounter. The action caused the hem of his T-shirt to ride up and Mycroft caught a glimpse of his flat stomach. A thin line of dark hair began just below his belly button broadening outwards as it disappeared beneath the waistband of his jeans. The stab of desire took him by surprise with its intensity.

The thumping in the adjacent cubicle abruptly stopped. Mycroft wasn't sure if he’d made a noise in the sudden silence but something caught the policeman’s attention. He looked towards Mycroft’s cubicle, his gaze seeming to focus on the spyhole. His frown reappeared and he bent one knee as though preparing to look beneath the partition. Mycroft recoiled, uncertain how to react. He was saved by the clatter of studs on the cottage steps. A gaggle of students from the local Higher Education College appeared, resplendent in their football kit. It was Wednesday afternoon, traditionally left free for sport, and they were up for indulging in some extracurricular activity. A crowd of regulars mysteriously appeared in their wake and in minutes the cottage was packed to the eaves, the atmosphere more in keeping with a particularly scandalous private party than a public convenience.

The policeman made the best of it but even his golden good looks struggled to compete with the glory of the second eleven in their long striped socks and tight white shorts. Mycroft pressed his eye to the spyhole and watched him work. It was an instructive afternoon. By his own lights the policeman played fair. He didn't stand at the urinals playing with his cock. He didn't offer sex, though every look, every smile, every shift of his hips dripped with it. He might ask for a light or strike up conversation or suggest going outside and let his mark make of that what they would, but he didn't solicit or ask them to tell him if they preferred to suck or fuck . A policeman with principles, apparently. An idealist one might almost say. How refreshing. No wonder his colleague in the Rover looked so fed up.

And here was something else that made Mycroft wonder. Not a hanging wrist, or a lisp or the mincing gait so beloved by comedians, but something in the way the policeman displayed himself so easily. And something about the direction of his gaze. He looked at men’s hands, he looked at their mouths, and sometimes he looked at their crotches. Brief little flicks of his eyes almost too fast to be seen. Straight men, Mycroft had learnt through careful observation, barely looked at each other at all. The police looked more carefully but it was a deliberate appraisal, checking for concealed weapons, intoxication and signs of aggression. This was something different. Something more instinctual. Perhaps the whispers had some truth to them after all. He didn't think this pretty policeman was entirely straight.

It was getting on for four by the time the cottage began to clear and Mycroft was numb with cold from the knees down. He was readying himself to make his escape back to Richmond to consider this new information in warmth and decent comfort when the policeman appeared directly in front of him, standing at the urinal. Mycroft stared, his eye glued to the spyhole, the cold forgotten. There was the heart-stopping sound of an unzipping fly. The waist of the policeman’s jeans sagged a little. He wasn't wearing any underwear.

A high-pitched ringing began in Mycroft’s ears. The policeman’s  tan extended to the base of his spine and then abruptly stopped. A narrow band pale band of flesh was just visible above the top of his jeans.  Mycroft had a vivid image of him in a pair of trunks, lying on a sandy beach, smooth skin beaded with sweat, basking in the sun’s golden rays. Off duty and perhaps in a playful mood. His mouth went dry. Common the policeman might be and soaked in cheap aftershave; it made no difference. After a moment he bowed to the inevitable and fumbled at his trousers. The attraction of easy to remove track suits with elasticated waistbands  suddenly became apparent. This was going to be as quick as it was shameful. He grasped himself feverishly and put his eye back to the spyhole.

The urinal was empty.

“What you doing?” The voice was shockingly close. Mycroft snatched his hand from his crotch and spun around to see who was talking then, with a sense of creeping dread, looked up. The policeman was peering over the top of the cubicle wall, his forearms resting along its upper edge. He must be standing on the lavatory in the adjacent stall. “You’ve been in there for hours,” he said. “At first I thought you must be really badly constipated.  And then I though you must be wanking but no one wanks for that long. So then I thought you must be dead or shooting up or something, but you’re not. “

“I’m reading the paper,” said Mycroft. He snatched the _People’s Daily_ from the top of the cistern and displayed it for verisimilitude, holding it carefully in front of his crotch.

“For four hours?”

“It’s in Chinese. I’m…still learning.”

“I think you’re watching me,” the policeman said.

“No,” Mycroft said, shrinking back against the opposite wall.

As abruptly as he had appeared, the policemen vanished. There was a slap as his boots hit the floor, then footsteps. Mycroft stared around the cubicle but twelve square feet of space offered little in the way of hiding places even to an intellect such as his. The sound of knuckles rapping on the door made him flinch. The old seasoned wood rang like a drum.

“Come on. Open up,” said the policeman, halfway between exasperated and amused. “I know you’re in there. I've just been talking to you.”

Bereft of any other options, Mycroft drew back the bolt and opened the door. Fear at least had quenched his libido, dousing his erection as effectively as a bucket of cold water.

“I haven’t done anything wrong,” he said. And it was true. He was going to be arrested and he’d done hardly anything at all. He hadn't fucked or been fucked; sucked or been sucked. He’d been given a couple of hand job and given a few himself. It didn't seem fair.

“I didn't say you had,” said the policeman reasonably enough. There was no recognition in his expression; no recollection of their previous encounter though it had haunted Mycroft’s dreams for the past few weeks.

They stared at each other in silence for a few moments. The urinal flushed, making them both jump.

“Then, can I go?” said Mycroft. “I don’t feel very well.”

The policeman rasped his chin. Though it was early yet, stubble showed dark along his jaw. “You’re not in trouble, are you?”

“What?” said Mycroft. He was on the verge of being arrested. It was the most trouble he’d ever been in in his life.

“You've not run away from home or something?”

Mycroft’s face grew hot with mortification even as his terror began to subside. He had hoped the tracksuit would provide a disguise and a diversion: the colours so bright no one would remember his face. He hadn't realised it made him look like some adolescent runaway.

“I’m not a child,” he said.

“Oh. All right,” the policeman chewed over that. “So you were watching me then.” He raised his eyebrows. His dark eyes danced with mischief.

“No! I was just-” Mycroft went redder yet and petered out, cursing the pale colouring that made his guilt so apparent. This wasn't going to plan. The idea was to beard the enemy in his den. Not to himself be bearded. His hands were sweating and he missed the protective carapace of his suit. He felt underdressed, under prepared, wrong-footed and in truth rather stupid. It was not a feeling he was familiar with. It was not a feeling he enjoyed.

The policeman watched, enjoying his confusion. “Do you want to go outside?” he said in the end, with the air of someone taking pity. “You can watch me a bit more if you like.”

“No,” said Mycroft. “No. I don’t want to go outside with you.”

“You sure?” The policeman’s voice became almost coaxing. “You've been watching me for hours. I don’t mind.” The eyebrows again. “I might like it.”

This time when he smiled the tip of his tongue appeared between his teeth.

“No,” said Mycroft. “No, I can’t.” The words had a slightly forlorn ring. No one had ever asked him to go outside with them before and now when someone had, someone he desperately wanted,  it was for the sole purpose placing him under arrest.

“You can if you want.” The policeman scratched his stomach lazily, not quite lifting the hem of his T-shirt. His dark eyes promised a thousand sins. Mycroft wanted him so badly he could barely breathe.

“No,” he said, “I can’t. You’re police.” The words came out less as a confident declaration and more as a pitiful squeak.

Abruptly, the humour in the policeman’s eyes vanished. His face hardened. “You what?” he said.

Mycroft’s heart sank. Some small part of him had hoped perhaps he might be mistaken, but it was clear that he was not. He was never mistaken. It was both his blessing and his curse.

“You’re police,” he said. “And if I see you around here again, there’ll be trouble.”

And with that he bolted up the stairs and ran like the blazes to the train station where he hid, with no shame at all, in the women’s toilets until his train arrived. Across the park, in the station, on the train and in his dreams for weeks afterwards he expected at every moment for someone to shout and grab him by the collar or wrestle him to the ground. But no one ever did.

 


	3. March 1987

For several tense weeks Mycroft avoided the cottages but as the shock of his near arrest receded, his libido began to re-emerge. He picked White City for his re-entry into impolite society - north east London - well away from Ealing and a Saturday to boot. It was match day: a local derby between two football teams on the verge of relegation. An early kick off had been scheduled in a probably futile attempt to prevent violence and he had banked on no member of the Metropolitan Police Service being foolish enough to show their face without twenty of their closest friends in tow.

The cottage was located in the tube station toilets. It was busy, raucous, and not maintained to István’s standards. The floor was littered with empty beer bottles and worse, and the tiny room stank of piss, beer, stale smoke and staler sweat. A palpable sense of danger hung in the air. Riot police were out in force carrying batons and shields and the cottage was filled with an uneasy mix of gay men, football fans and hangers on, drinking, fucking and readying themselves for the afternoon’s main event: watching the game and giving any rival fans they came across a good kicking. The dress code tended to shaved heads, union jack tattoos and broken noses. Mycroft, in his three piece suit and tie - no pocket watch today, no point in courting trouble - was about as inconspicuous as a peacock amidst a flock of pigeons. In fairness, he was not an entirely unwelcome visitor. They didn’t get many city gents in this part of town and they too had their admirers. More than one of the waiting men had darted him a speculative glance as they'd walked through the door. 

Into this febrile atmosphere, came the policeman like a lamb to the slaughter. Mycroft smelled him before he saw him. Logic dictated that more than one young man in west London must wear  _Kouros_ , but few seemed to do so with quite so much dedication. He had been idley watching two young skinheads get it on in one of the cubicles. The door had been ripped from its hinges which made the task easier. They had been surprisingly tender with each other, pausing to kiss before one knelt on the piss-soaked floor and Mycroft had spent a productive few moments imagining how it might feel to be sandwiched between their wiry bodies. For a second he thought the blast of civet and citrus assaulting his nostrils came from the overflowing urinals. Then a dip in conversation and a low whistle told him they had a new arrival. He didn't need to turn his head to know who it was, but he did so anyway with a creeping sense of inevitability.

Sure enough, his Ealing acquaintance stood by the door. His blond streaks had begun to grow out, but his highlights, his aftershave and his carefully maintained designer stubble marked him out as much an interloper as Mycroft and one far less likely to be tolerated. They didn’t go for flashy young men in White City; someone had miscalculated badly sending him out today. Mycroft beat a discreet retreat into the cover of the cubicle, nudging the bald love-birds to one side.

“Fuck me, it’s Duran Duran,” someone said.

The policeman glanced around the cottage, taking in the clientèle then looked back towards the door, wondering if he should cut and run. His trade mark grin was conspicuous by its absence.

“Don’t I know you?” said someone else. The speaker was a short man with hard eyes and a tight, angry way of holding himself. He gripped a bottle of beer as though he’d like nothing better than to wrap it around someone’s skull.

The policeman shook his head. “Don’t think so, mate.”

His accent had shifted, Mycroft noted. Moved away from its Estuary roots into something more cockney. 'Think' had become: 'fink' in an attempt to blend in.

“Singer, ain’t he? Simon Le Whatsit,” said the first speaker impressed by his own wit.

“No, I know him,” insisted the second. “He’s police. I've seen him up Brentford way. He picked me up once for drunk and disorderly.”

The policeman shook his head. “Not me, mate. Never been to Brentford in my life.”

Bizarrely, Mycroft believed him. The short man had made a lucky guess, or more likely - picked a profession he knew would unite the crowd behind him. The flat glitter in his eyes said he’d had eight pints and was spoiling for a fight. He was smiling now, believing he was onto a winner. The policeman knew it too. He began to back towards the door. There were a few more bodies blocking his way then there had been a few moments previously.

“And I’m not police either,” he added, a second too late.

The short man shrugged and muttered something Mycroft couldn't hear. Whatever it was, it caused a hush to fall over the room and the policeman to pause and shift his weight onto the balls of his feet. Mycroft had seen Sherlock do something similar in judo classes. He doubted it would do much good here. There were about two dozen men in the cottage. Some held glass bottles. Most wore heavy boots. There was one exit and it was blocked. None of the cubicles had doors; there was nowhere to hide. This could all get very messy, very fast. Not least for any innocent bystanders caught in the cross fire.

A cool voice in the back of his head noted that in the normal course of events, the police protected people like him from people like these.

“He’s not, you know,” he heard a voice say. It was his. Clear, confident - full of the natural assurance of the ruling class. “I had him last week.”

Heads turned to see who’d spoken. Mycroft abandoned the shelter of the cubicle and moved into the centre of the room positioning himself, not coincidentally closer, to the exit. The policeman's eyes widened in recognition. “Arse like a peach,” Mycroft added, holding his gaze.

There was a long, charged pause. Then the door to the cottage banged open, making everyone jump. It admitted a harassed looking man towing two small boys by the hand. He took one look at the tableau in front of him, turned on his heel and hurried them out. Mycroft didn't blame him. “But,  _Daddy_ ,” he heard one of the boys protest before the door slammed shut, “I need the  _toilet_ _!”_

A ripple of amusement passed over the room. The short man slumped against the wall and drank moodily from his bottle; his moment passed. The policeman took a deep breath and risked an uncertain smile. Disaster averted. He really was very good looking. It would have been a shame to have seen that handsome face kicked to a pulp. 

“Please excuse me,” he said to the men surrounding him and took a long, slow step towards the door.

“Let’s see it then,” someone said. Mycroft thought it might be their resident Duran Duran enthusiast.

“Excuse me for just a moment,” he said again to two large tattooed men blocking the door way. They moved aside without protest, their attention fixed on the scene in front of them. “Thank you _so_ much.”

“You what?” the policeman said.

“Show us what you got, peachy bum.”

Low laughter came from the fringes of the crowd. It took a moment before Mycroft realised the import of the words. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

The policeman was quicker on the uptake. “Fuck off.”

Without looking at each other the two door keepers took a step back in tandem, pressing their shoulders against the door. The manoeuvre prevented anyone from interrupting them. It also blocked the only route out.

“Er, excuse me?” Mycroft said, a little desperately. “I was wondering if I might get by?”

They ignored him. The exit barred, Mycroft debated for a moment then turned with his heart in his mouth to watch the unfolding drama.

“What’s the matter?” one of the skinheads was saying to the policeman. He’d finished his tryst and emerged from the cubicle to watch this new entertainment with interest. “Don’t you like us?”

His partner agreed. “What are you here for, if not that?”

An unnatural hush settled over the watching crowd. It was match day, after all. They wanted to fight or they wanted to fuck. The policeman looked about, desperately seeking an ally. Mycroft avoided his eye. He could think of nothing to say and he was painfully aware that he’d be no use in a fight, at eleven Sherlock was already braver than he. The best he could hope for was an opportune moment to go for help.

The policeman apparently reached a similar conclusion. “You’re fucking kidding me,” he muttered. Then with an air making the best of a bad situation he flicked open the button of his jeans, dragged his fly half undone and did a slow spin. Mycroft caught a glimpse of white flesh, dark hair and a flash of bright colour, vivid against pale skin. Then it was gone and policeman was pulling up his jeans. “Happy now, lads?”

The short man roused himself where he’d been slumped in drunken stupor. “He’s a fucking Gooner,” he said. “Look at that tattoo.”

The policeman’s hand paused at his zip. “You going to give me shit for that too now, are you?”

His irritation was genuine. It said a lot about humanity, Mycroft thought. You could intimidate a man into displaying his cock for your edification but insult his football team and you’d have a fight on your hands.

“Maybe,” the short man said, his smile returning.

“Leave it out,” the skinhead, clearly uninterested in sporting rivalries. “I want to see this.”

“Yeah, he didn't show us hardly anything.”

The short man spread his arms wide. “Be my guest, pal.”

The policeman shook his head. “Tosser,” he said. He glanced around the room, assessing the mood. Then bowing to the pressure of two dozen pairs of eyes, he unzipped his fly and pulled out his cock, cupping it carefully in one hand. A murmur of appreciation ran around the room. A couple of people whistled. It was, Mycroft saw as though at a great distance, a lovely cock, even in its understandably shy state. It nestled in the policeman’s hand: well proportioned, smooth and evenly coloured. The foreskin fitted snugly around the tip and a charmingly pink head peeked through the end. Its base was rooted in a thicket of neatly trimmed dark curls, proof if any were needed that the policeman was not a natural blond. Even his balls – hardly the most attractive part of the male anatomy - were smooth skinned, nicely shaped and well matched.

“Like that do you?” the policeman said and to further whistles, shoved his jeans lower down his thighs. He did have a tattoo. A red shield blazed high on his thigh just below the divot of his buttock. The skin there was smooth and pale, untouched by the sun. Mycroft forgot all thoughts of escape. He wanted nothing more than to kiss that divot, then to press his nose deep into that dark mass of curls and to suck on that lovely, lovely cock.

“Yeah, but does it work?” someone called. “Or does it just look pretty?”

For a second the policeman didn’t answer. Then slowly and deliberately he squeezed his hand. “Oh, it works all right,” he said. Mycroft wasn't sure if he was operating on a hunch or had resorted to playing the crowd at its own game. Either way, it seemed to work. Several of the onlookers licked their lips. One of the skinheads edged forward to get a better look, ignoring his partner’s scowl. Give them another ten minutes and they’d be fighting over him.

The policeman squeezed his hand again. His dark eyes sparked with mischief. This time his cock swelled visibly, darkening to a rich rosy pink. Maybe he was simply one of those who enjoyed having an audience.

“Yeah. Do that again,” someone said gutturally. Mycroft didn’t think it was he who had spoken but the comment echoed his thoughts perfectly.

In response the policeman began sliding his hand slowly up and down his cock, concealing then revealing the glossy head like a conjurer. He was playing the crowd as much as he was playing with himself. Several of the onlookers were undoing their flies. Mycroft just stared. Blood pounded through his scalp. He thought he might faint but the state of the floor dissuaded him. Instead he stood rooted to the spot, staring at the spectacle before him. All his most secret desires made manifest.

“Look at her with her tongue handing out,” said a voice faint and far away, “she wants another bite.” They were talking about him. It was true his mouth was open. His chest felt tight. It was difficult to breathe. Some of the crowd had their cocks out. The skinheads were kissing again. All Mycroft could see was the policeman, his hair flopping over his forehead, working his cock. His heart thudded in his ears. Surely he was about to have a heart attack or a nose bleed, or- A muffled commotion was taking place outside; a metallic clanking. He had a sudden vivid memory of the Giant crushing him against a wall, rubbing him with hard, deliberate strokes, staggered-

And without warning a heavy-set man barrelled through the cottage door, pushing a cleaning trolley in front of him, almost flattening the tattooed door keepers and knocking a couple of the more preoccupied spectators to the floor.

“All right!” a man barked. “Out you come, you lot. We’re closing up for cleaning.”

Mycroft had a confused impression of a moustache and a sheepskin jacket and behind it several bodies in uniform. The cavalry had arrived to clean up this den of iniquity, on the request perhaps of the man with the two boys. He saw the policeman turn and cram his cock back into his jeans, then seizing the moment he was out onto the concourse, slipping through the uniforms, and making his escape amongst the match day hordes. A stream of men surged out of the cottage behind him. When he reached the ticket barriers, Mycroft looked back. He caught a brief glimpse of the policeman’s blond cockatoo’s crest of hair bobbing its way towards the exits before the crowds carried him down to the tube.

 

* * *

 

The journey to Richmond was slow and tedious, and provided ample time for contemplation about the perils of slumming and cottaging in general. It was hard not to resent the system that drove him into such places and made him a criminal for what he did in his private life. Still, as he hung from a strap in a packed tube carriage outside Hammersmith, sweaty, dishevelled and quite disgustingly sticky, he reflected ironically that there was at least one bright side to the whole sorry affair. The incident had resolved one matter beyond all reasonable doubt. Even allowing for the wide spectrum of human sexual behaviour, it was unlikely a completely straight man would achieve orgasm through the sole expedient of watching another man masturbate.


	4. April 1987

The cottage in Ealing was almost empty the next time he visited it. It was April and raining, the heavy drops of a warm spring rain. A dim green light filtered through the overgrown laurel bushes and picked out the colours of the mosaic crest by the doorway. Mycroft paused at the threshold, shaking water from his coat, and wondered if it was worth his time going in.

“Still raining?” someone said.

It was the policeman. He was sitting along one of the shelves that ran down the side of the alcove, his back to the window, doing his best to read a newspaper in the half-light. An unlit cigarette dangled from his lip.

“Yes,” Mycroft said. He doubted it needed saying. The rain rattled against the long high window and flooded from the gutters, pouring onto the sodden grass with a noise like a waterfall. He lingered a moment longer at the doorway, then took a cautious step inside.

The policeman put his newspaper to one side. “Got a light?”

Mycroft still didn’t smoke, but he had taken to carrying matches for circumstances such as these. He picked his way across the wet tiles to the alcove and struck a match, cupping his hand around the flame while it took. The policeman emerged from the gloom. He was wearing a battered leather jacket in addition to his usual ripped jeans and he’d had a haircut. The sides were tapered back in a neat trim that left the nape of his neck bare to the touch. The barber had shorn away his golden highlights, leaving only the tips of his hair blond. The new style made him look older, more serious. Mycroft had put him at twenty-one, twenty-two at the outside. Now, in the flickering light, he could see the beginnings of fine lines around the policeman’s eyes and revised his estimate upwards - nearer to twenty five. Soon he’d be over the hill.

He lit the cigarette, blew out the match and returned them to the safety of the gloom.

“Ta,” said the policeman. He looked at the cigarette in his hand as though wondering what to do with it. “Empty in here.”

“There’s police about,” said Mycroft, though it was only half the reason. A series of ominous adverts had appeared on the television; an iceberg emerging from the depths. It warned of a deadly disease spread through sex. People were scared.

“Oh yeah. Someone did mention it.” The policeman gave him a half smile. “It does put a damper on things, that.” He took a drag of his cigarette then grimaced. “Christ,” he said. “I’m spending so much time in the gents, even my fags taste of bleach.” He ground out the cigarette against the wall and flicked the butt onto the floor.

Mycroft winced on István’s behalf but didn’t say anything. The rain rattled harder against the window, drowning out the sound of the traffic. Even the Kouros seemed muted today, mingling with the scents of leather and pine in a way that was almost pleasant.

“It’s not what I expected, you know?” the policeman said eventually. The rain seemed to have put him in a reflective mood. “Getting a posting to Serious Crime. I thought it would be a bit more…Miami Vice. Drugs barons, car chases, that kind of thing? Not...” He gestured around the cottage and sighed.

Not spending his days in public toilets wasting his time and energy pursuing a victimless crime, Mycroft finished for him silently.

“I see,” was all he said.

The policeman settled back against the wall and pulled his jacket tighter around his chest. “You look better without the tracksuit,” he said.

Mycroft shrugged. He didn’t take it as a particular compliment. Anyone would look better without that tracksuit.

“Not got much to say for yourself today?” said the policeman after a pause. “You were chatty enough in White City-”

“Ah,” said Mycroft.

“-for all the good it did.”

“I was trying to help,” said Mycroft stung.

“Talk about out of the frying pan into the fire,” said the policeman. To Mycroft’s relief he seemed to find the memory funny.

“I should perhaps have thought it through a little more thoroughly,” he admitted recollecting the hot blank eyes of the watching crowd.

“I shouldn’t have been there in the first place,” said the policeman, his mirth fading. He picked at the white threads running across the knee of his jeans and brooded for a few moments. “What you doing here anyway?” he said suddenly. “I’ve never got that. Look at you,” he indicated Mycroft’s smart suit and raincoat. “You look like you should be at a funeral or something. This isn’t a place for the likes of you.”

“I don’t have a place,” said Mycroft surprised into honesty. It was true. He didn’t fit with the stockbrokers and their red braces, nor with Aunt Margaret and her floral tea cups, nor with the grey-suited civil servants, nor with the football fans, nor with the police.

“Well how old are you? Seventeen, eighteen?”

“Twenty-eight,” said Mycroft working on the principle that large lies were always more convincing than small ones.

It worked. The policeman peered at him through the dim green light and said doubtfully, “Oh, right.”

He really wasn’t very bright, Mycroft thought. In the quiet of the alcove, separated from the world by a veil of rain, he began to see the policeman as he was. Not some untouchable golden youth sent from on high, but a man. Average in many ways. Bored. A little lonely. Perhaps in need of a friend.

“Yes,” he said. “Quite grown up.” He took a deep breath and with very great daring put his hand on the policeman’s knee. The one with the rip in the jeans.

For a few moments there was no sound but the rain. They both looked at Mycroft’s hand, pale in the gloom. An invitation. A confession. A statement of intent.

“You’ll get yourself into trouble,” said the policeman quietly. “Reece will be checking up on me soon.”

Reece, Mycroft inferred, was the wearer of the sheepskin jacket.

“He’s never bothered previously,” he said but he lifted his hand away.

“He got bolloxed by the DI for sending me into White City tube on a match day,” the policeman said. His smile was hard-edged - lacking its usual easy humour. “I should have said something at the time. I thought he knew what he doing.”

“You won’t make that mistake again.”

“Too right,” said the policeman, grimmer than Mycroft had ever seen him. “He’s meant to check in hourly, now. Make sure I’m not getting myself into trouble.” He shifted on the ledge. The movement pulled his jeans tight across his thighs, moulding them to him like a second skin. “We’ll see.”

“You don’t think he will?”

The policeman ran a hand up the back of his head, as though missing his absent hair. He was silent for a long time before replying. “Carl doesn’t like queers. He thinks I’m too soft on them.”

“You think he sent you into White City on purpose,” said Mycroft with sudden understanding. Not a mistake but a toughening up exercise; one that had come perilously close to disaster.

“Don’t know,” said the policeman but the crease between his eyebrows belied his words. Clever or not, he had some insight into human nature. Not a talent that would have gained him many O-levels, but a talent nonetheless. It was professional discretion not doubt that prevented him voicing his suspicions. “It’s different in Vice. They’ve got their own way of doing things.”

“And _are_ you too soft on queers?” Mycroft said.

The policeman gave a snort of surprised laughter. “No comment.”

Mycroft watched him laugh. Such sparkling dark eyes he had; such an easy smile. So very handsome, so very charming, so very much forbidden fruit. He could spend his whole life watching that smile. “I wish-” he said, but what he wanted was impossible. He put his hand on the policeman’s knee instead. The other knee – the one where the denim was worn thin but still whole, drawn tight across his leg.

“I told you. You’ll get yourself in trouble,” the policeman said half-heartedly.

“I don’t care,” said Mycroft for once in his life reckless. He could feel the warmth of the policeman’s flesh, solid beneath the threadbare fabric. He could smell his skin. “I want-” then lacking words he drew a knuckle slowly along the inner knee of the policeman’s jeans.

The policeman stirred beneath his touch. “You’ll get _me_ into trouble, for sure.”

“It doesn’t count if you keep your clothes on,” said Mycroft. The words were purposely flippant, a cover for his tumultuous emotions, but once he’d said them he felt a prickle run up the back of his neck. A budding insight.

“That so?”

“You’re not allowed, are you?” said Mycroft, working it out as he spoke. “To show any skin?”

For a long second he didn’t think the policeman would reply. When he finally spoke the words came carefully, one at a time, as though he was weighing them. “You’re not meant to show your cock. That’s entrapment.”

“Oh,” said Mycroft. He rubbed his thumb once across the worn denim. “So White City…?”

“Was a bit of a balls up all around.”

“Yes.” He thought again of that lovely cock, so pink and eager - it hardly a struggle - the memory had accompanied all of his waking hours. “And what else can't you do?”

“You can’t offer sex. And you can’t ask for it neither. They’ve got to make you the offer.” In the empty alcove, the policeman’s voice sounded deeper and more resonant, the echoes muting some of its more irritating nasal qualities.

“Have they?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m not offering you anything,” said Mycroft, “just to be clear.” He squeezed the policeman’s knee in emphasis. “When’s your colleague coming back?”

“Twenty minutes.” The policeman shifted on the ledge as though the position was uncomfortable. Mycroft felt a long thigh muscle flex and relax beneath his hand. “Bit longer, maybe. He doesn’t like getting his hair wet.”

“Then we have some time,” Mycroft said.

“But anyone could come in.”

“They won’t,” said Mycroft. “No one’s going to disturb us in this weather.”

The policeman stared at him, then twisted his head, staring up at the window where the rain ran in thick rivulets across the grimy glass. He wanted to believe; Mycroft could see. People were so willing to believe what you told them, when what you told them was what they wanted to hear.

“You can’t tell anyone,” the policeman whispered hoarsely.

Mycroft felt triumph burst within him like a firework but he schooled his expression to blandness, permitting himself only an ironic smile. “Oh your secret’s perfectly safe with me, officer.”

He smoothed his hand up the policeman’s leg, barely believing his own audacity. Along the inner thigh the denim was soft, worn thin, almost to threads. When he reached the junction of crotch and inseam, he paused. Then very carefully and slowly he slipped his fingers into the corner of the rip that ran across the buttock of the policeman’s jeans.

The policeman made a noise in the back of his throat. “Your hands are cold,” he said but made no effort move away.

“I have terrible circulation,” Mycroft murmured, distracted to the point of inanity by the feeling of warm flesh beneath his fingertips. His searching hand found no underwear to impede its explorations. The policeman’s backside was firm, round, a little fuzzy. A ripe peach. Full of the promise of sweetness.

The gleam of teeth in the dimness. “Cold hands, warm heart?”

“Not really,” said Mycroft. “No.”

He lingered a moment longer, but time was short. He shifted his attention to the crossed seam between the policeman’s spread thighs instead, rubbing his knuckles against the fabric, working around each of the four quadrants. When he reached the third, the policeman took a sudden deep breath. A shifting beneath the denim made the skin of Mycroft’s balls tighten in response. The material had strained taut, pulling the back seam of jeans delightfully snug into the deep cleft that divided the policeman’s behind. Mycroft slipped his fingers further into the divide, stroking along the soft worn denim, the heat of bare skin only a fraction on an inch away. He ran his fingers lightly up the cleft of the policeman’s arse. Then on instinct he pressed against the seam itself.

The result was dramatic. The policeman gave a shocked, guttural cry. His hips left the ledge and he almost fell from his perch. At the last second he caught at Mycroft’s arm. Their faces were suddenly only inches apart.

“I’m not...” the policeman said, his breath a warm gust of air against Mycroft’s cheek.

Not what? Mycroft wondered, examining his face. Dark eyes, dark hair flopping over his forehead, dark line of stubble along his jaw. Not gay? Not allowed? Not into being fingered? It was as though their ages were reversed and the policeman was the novice and he the guide.

“It’s all right,” he said making his tone soothing. The policeman’s eyes searched his, looking for reassurance. It wasn’t disgust making him skittish, Mycroft realised. Enjoying having another man stroke his balls was one thing, the realisation he enjoyed having his arse played with was another thing entirely. “Really it’s fine,” he repeated, resisting the impulse to roll his eyes. “We don’t have to do that if you don’t like it.”

The policeman studied him a moment longer. Then he nodded and settled back onto the ledge. After a second he rested his hands on his knees, closed his eyes and tipped back his head against the wall in a reasonable facsimile of a man resigned to his fate.

“How about here?” Mycroft said and placed his hand lightly on the policeman’s fly. It was surrounded by whiskers of faded material that fanned across his hips like the spokes of a wheel, drawing the eye inward, inviting the touch.

The policeman nodded without opening his eyes.

The rain drummed against the window as Mycroft worked his way along each of the spokes in turn, rubbing his fingers along them. The hidden skin grew warm beneath his hands. He could smell it: leather and sweat; honey sweet Kouros and an animal mustiness. The outline of the policeman's cock had appeared, pointing to seven o'clock. Mycroft rubbed the base of his palm against it, coaxing it into full hardness. Then on impulse he leant forward and placed his mouth to the hard ridge, breathing heat through the denim. The muscles of the policeman’s thighs and stomach tightened. The thin fabric beneath his lips was suddenly wet. He thought he could taste salt. He mouthed against the damp patch, then licked it and felt an unmistakable answering surge of wetness.

“Christ,” said the policeman. He had abandoned his pose of indifference and was leaning forward to watch in fascination. For the benefit of his audience, Mycroft turned his head and bit lightly along the shaft, from base to tip, before returning to lick where the head pressed round and firm against the worn cloth.

“Oh Christ,” the policeman repeated. Then more desperately as Mycroft nuzzled against him: “Oh, _Jesus_ Christ.” One of his hands landed on Mycroft’s neck, cupping just below the base of his skull. With the other he fumbled at his fly. Waves of Kouros rolled from his hot skin. Rich, warm. Pungently sweet, with a dirty underbelly. “Suck me.”

“You can’t ask,” said Mycroft said as distinctly as he could manage, “you’re not allowed.”

Being denied only made the policeman’s hips heave harder. There was no doubt now that Mycroft could taste him. He put his mouth over the outline of the round head and sucked on it with long slow pulls. He knew now what he liked: he liked this. He liked it very much.

“Shit!” said the policeman suddenly. He froze in place staring over Mycroft's head. Then his hips twisted once more and he was off the ledge and landing heavily on the floor. “It’s him.”

By the time Mycroft had registered the sound of footsteps on the stairs outside, his companion had already dived into the nearest cubicle. The bolt shot home just as the silhouette of a burly figure appeared at the bottom of the stairs. Detective Constable Carl Reece, Mycroft presumed. He picked up the newspaper left lying on the sill and pretended to be browsing through it. _The Mirror,_ dear God.

Reece paused at the entrance, much as Mycroft had, peering into the darkness, trying to locate his colleague.

“Is it still raining out?” Mycroft called. His hands were sweating, turning his fingertips black with newsprint, but his voice was surprising calm.

Reece jumped and looked towards him. With the only light coming from behind, Mycroft would barely be visible, an anonymous silhouette in a long dark coat. “Yeah.”

“What a bore,” said Mycroft and returned his attention to the paper. Conservative MP in court charged with gross indecency. Full lurid details of the indecency on page five. He flicked through the pages, while Reece stood awkwardly by the urinal staring at the cubicles, obviously wondering what his protégée was playing at. When his trousers had loosened to a degree that would no longer alarm his fellow commuters, he spoke again, “Are you waiting for something?”

“No,” said Reece, “No. I’m just…” his head turned unconsciously towards the closed cubicle door.

“You’re not one of those queers are you?” Mycroft said. “I can’t abide that kind of thing.”

“No!” Reece said. “No I-”

“No,” said Mycroft. “Well. I should hope not.” He gave a disapproving sniff then, holding _The Mirror_ over his head to shield his face, he swept from the cottage and up the stairs, almost bowling Reece into the urinal as he passed.

 

* * *

 

The invitation to interview was waiting for him when he got to his aunt's. It had arrived in a large, hand-addressed manila envelope. There was another envelope inside, this one stamped Confidential and marked _On Her Majesty’s Service._ The letter invited him to attend an anonymous looking building on the South Bank the following week. The interview itself was undertaken in Russian with two very anonymous looking men and consisted of a pleasant chat about current affairs. His recent reading of the _People’s Daily_ stood him in good stead. He wasn’t at all surprised when a second letter arrived inviting him to a security interview.

He phoned his mother to let her know. He'd thought she’d be pleased but her reaction was muted.

“And you’re sure this is what you want, darling?” she said.

“Yes,” he said. “Of course. Why wouldn’t it be, Mummy?”

There was a long pause from the other end of the line.

“Mikey,” she said. Hated childhood nickname. “You know that Daddy and I have always loved your Uncle Rudy, despite his little oddities?”

“I suppose,” he said though in truth he hadn’t really thought about it.

“So if you didn’t feel able at the moment to take this up-”

“I don’t understand,” he said.

“-or if you wanted to postpone the decision for a year, or two-”

“Mummy…”

“-then we wouldn’t mind, darling.”

“Mummy.”

“I’m just saying. We wouldn’t think any less of you.”

“You think I have,” he said, “oddities? Daddy thinks I have oddities?”

“We just wouldn’t want you to put yourself in an untenable position.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said.

Another long pause.

“Mikey…” she said again.

“It’s Mycroft, Mummy,” he bit out. “Not Mikey. Mycroft.”

“We thought you liked 'Mikey'?”

“No Mummy,” he bit out, “no. I’ve always loathed it.” He hung up before she could reply.

 


	5. May 1987

The security interview wasn't until the following month, to allow enough time for his prospective employers to consult with his University tutors and Treasury colleagues in the interim. Doubtless hey would be carefully quizzed to ensure there were no skeletons in his closet. There were, of course, but none that they would know of. He had always been very careful in that respect. His parents might have their suspicions; his colleagues might gossip about his lack of girlfriend, but no one had any proof.

No, it wasn’t worry about past misdemeanours coming home to roost which kept Mycroft awake in his narrow bed as April turned to May and the dawn twilight lengthened. It was foreboding about the future. A role in MI5 would mean the cottages were a risk he could no longer afford to take, he accepted that. But casual sex was not the only thing he would have to forsake. His private life would become the property of the service. There would be no partner, no companion, no possibility of a ‘special friend’ once he was of age. His only permitted choice would be a life of celibacy, with perhaps an occasional, discreet, financially-based encounter in one of the more liberal European cities to tide him over. He considered himself hard-headed, unsentimental, by no stretch of the imagination a fire-brand radical, but as he lay watching the grey dawn light creep across his bedroom ceiling, he found it remarkably hard that at nineteen he was expected to relinquish all hope of intimacy, support, a mutually satisfying physical relationship, because of an innate preference over which he had no control.

The problem as he saw it was the dearth of better options. The security service offered entry into the corridors of power, a chance to use his intellect in the service of his country, to test it against minds almost as great as his own. One might almost say a vocation. The alternative for a man of his antecedents was a job in the City. Cocaine to face the tedium of the mornings. Barbiturates to lull him to sleep at night.  Shooting at the weekends at a series of interminable house parties while fending off constant, intrusive questions about marriage. It seemed a heavy price to pay for the freedom of a little flat in Camden where he might install an accommodating young man. Could he endure it, or would he end up dead from boredom before he was thirty-five? Or worse, like Uncle Rudy, his ‘eccentricities’ tolerated, an object of amused pity and contempt.

 

* * *

 

Early summer was in full riot the last time he descended the shallow staircase into the Ealing cottage. After six months of sleet followed by drizzle followed by rain, the arrival of the sun had brought a palpable lifting of spirits. The common was dotted with sunbathers basking in the unfamiliar warmth. Shirts had come off, girls were in bikini tops and and torsos of all shapes, colours and degrees of sunburn were on display. The cottage was full too, thick with cigarette smoke and echoing with laughter. Mycroft paused on the lowest step and looked inside. It seemed as though all Ealing had come out to play. István had cut back the laurel from around the window and the late afternoon sunshine flooded in, highlighting the curling smoke, picking out details of the green marble trim and burnishing the dark wood fittings a warm amber.

The policeman was there, right in the centre of the crowd. Somehow Mycroft had known that today he would be. He was laughing at some unheard joke. A ray of light from the window caught him in its path so that he seemed almost lit from within. He really was most extraordinarily handsome. None of his admirers were even touching him. They were content just to stand in his presence.

Perhaps he made some sudden movement, perhaps it was just unconscious recognition of the shape of the silhouette in the doorway, but as though by telepathy the policeman turned caught his eye. His smile illuminated the room. Mycroft held the look for a few seconds then slipped down the steps and into the nearest cubicle. He waited, strangely certain, his pulse pounding in his temples. He felt light-headed, reckless. The sound of quick steps outside came as no surprise.

“Fancy seeing you here,” said the policeman, laughing as he swung around the doorpost into the cubicle. He wore no jacket today, just a white T shirt and his favourite faded jeans. His dark hair was tousled and his eyes sparkled with mischief.

Mycroft shut the door and in a second they were pushed up against it, the policeman with his back to the wood, Mycroft pressed tight to him, his hands at his waist. He buried his nose into the sweet angle between his neck and his shoulder and inhaled the heady scent of honey, musk, smoke and clean skin. Their hips pressed together, a thigh nudging between his, the most welcome friction. He could feel the heat of  skin beneath the thin cotton of the policeman's shirt, the resilience of firm muscle beneath his hands, the incomparable thrill another man’s body pushing into his. Surely it was impossible to be expected to give all this up?

“I want to suck you,” he muttered into the policeman’s ear and felt his answering shiver. “I want to suck you off,” he said again, more boldly. “Suck your cock.”

The crudeness of the words excited him. He’d never expressed his desires so openly. He'd never had  the opportunity.  A burgeoning heat pressed against his thigh. Such a lovely cock. So pink, so eager. Oh, how he had wanted it for months. He began to fumble at the policeman’s fly, his hands shaking with urgency, needing him naked. He was more than halfway done before a hand on his wrist stopped him.

“No wait, hold up.”

Mycroft frowned. This didn’t make sense. The swell of the policeman’s erection was real, the realest thing Mycroft had ever known. “You said – last time - you asked me to?”

"I know, but now I can't."

"Why not?"

The policeman sighed, pushed him gently away, and began to do up his fly. It took some time. “I’ve met a girl,” he said when he was finished. “A really nice girl. I met her on holiday a couple of months back. Turns out she only lives around the corner. Small world, eh?”

“Yes,” said Mycroft blankly. He didn’t understand what was happening.

“It’s serious. I've asked her. We’re going to get married.”

The words hit Mycroft like a blow. Married. Of course. Of course he was. He was going to get married. That was why he was smiling. That was the cause of this inner glow. He was going to get married. And have a family. And live happily ever after. And do all the things Mycroft could never do. Do all the things which weren’t permitted for the likes him.

"I see," he said. And he did.

“And I’ve got a new job,” the policeman said. He dropped his voice. “Serious crime. I start next week.”

“Well,” said Mycroft. There was a bitter taste in his mouth. His chest felt hollow, as if every organ had been emptied out. “You have been busy. You must allow me to be the first to congratulate you.”

He took a copy of the _Financial Times_ from his briefcase and dropped it deliberately onto the floor. The policeman watched, his smooth brow wrinkled. It was only when Mycroft locked the cubicle door that he cottoned on.

“No, I told you, I can’t.”

“Of course you can,” said Mycroft. Life might have barred him from enjoying certain pleasures open to the masses, but this one he was determined to have. “Probably half of the men here are married. That’s the point of this place - no emotional involvement. Sex for the sake of sex.”

The policeman shook his head. “Not for me. I‘m sorry.”

He was. Mycroft could see it in his eyes. He actually was. He was sorry because in his happiness, he was naïve enough to want everyone to be happy. He was sorry because despite his limited intellect he could see, however dimly, that in life’s lottery he’d been given a winning ticket - looks, charm, and now love, while Mycroft was to be permitted none of these things. He could see that, and  he felt bad for him.

Ice-cold anger surged through Mycroft's veins. He was the object of no man’s pity.

“You can,” he snapped. “You will. Or I will tell every man in this room what you are.”

“What are you on about?”

“What happened in White City can happen here too.”

It took a second before understanding dawned in the policeman’s eyes. When it arrived, Mycroft saw with an ugly twist of satisfaction, it arrived mixed with shock and perhaps an edge of fear.

“You don’t mean that.”

“I do,” said Mycroft his voice utterly steady. Pity was not a luxury people like him could afford to indulge in. He picked his next words with great care. “Do you really want to risk spending your wedding day in a wheelchair?”

It was not his finest hour. Even as he said the words, Mycroft recognised that. In reality, the danger was minimal. Ealing on a sunny afternoon in late May was not White City on match day. The men in the cottage were in the mood for love, not hate, enjoying the sunshine and hoping for a bit of fun on the way home  Hearing an officer of the law was in their midst would most likely to cause them to swiftly disperse. But in the final analysis, the degree of danger didn’t matter. The threat had been made, the words spoken, the moral Rubicon crossed. In the subsequent decades he was to gain a reputation for an almost preternatural understanding of his opponent’s weak points; an insight into the human psyche that was to gain him the respect of his colleagues, if never their love. He was to do things that many would deem morally questionable – sacrifice the few for the many, give assurances he never intended to honour, spy on his allies - but never again did he use his talents solely for the purposes of base personal gain. Little comfort however for the policeman, who found himself now caught in a trap laid for him by Mycroft Holmes. After a second his shoulder’s sagged. He pulled open his fly and tugged his jeans down his thighs, then leant back against the cubicle door.

“You can’t tell anyone,” he said.

Mycroft didn’t respond. He had already sunk to his knees, kneeling carefully on the _Financial Times_ to protect his trousers. The policeman’s cock lay soft and pink in its dark bed of curls. He stared at it, memorising this moment. Then he took a deep breath and did what he’d dreamed of doing every night in his empty bed. He leant forward, took the policeman’s cock between his lips and sucked him gently into his mouth. The softness of the skin gliding against his lips was a shock. Smoother than he'd ever imagined. Smoother than silk and tasting of  salt, and musk and soap. His sucked a little harder, his tongue learning every inch, loving it, coaxing out a response until the quiescent flesh began to stir in his mouth. Then he began to suck in earnest, sucking the policeman’s cock until it was hot and hard. Sucking it until the policeman  groaned and cupped the back of his head and began to thrust his hips. Mycroft's cock was hard and urgent in his trousers, demanding relief. He held the policeman with one hand and sucked passionately. With the other he opened his fly and pulled himself free, rubbing his shaft in time with the policeman's rhythm.

The policeman gave a guttural shout. The hand in Mycroft's hair tightened and hot seed flooded his Mycroft’s mouth. He sucked it up eagerly. The policeman’s cries became higher pitched. His spine arched, pushing his hips away from the wall, his eyes squeezed shut, his face twisted into a grimace which seemed to owe as much to pain as pleasure. Still Mycroft didn’t relent, not stopping until he had sucked every last drop out of him and wrung him dry.

His own climax was over before he knew it, a series of hot relieving spurts which striped the salmon pink paper beneath his knees a milky orange. He barely noticed. His forehead was pressed against the policeman’s sweat-slick hip; his mouth overflowing with his seed. He had got what he wanted. The taste of victory was bitter sweet. He rested for a moment longer, skin to skin, then drew back and spat carefully onto the newspaper, avoiding his suit. The policeman said nothing. His eyes were closed. His chest rose and fell rapidly. Mycroft could see the lingering shivers running through the muscles of his hips and thighs and felt a distant flicker of pride at his apparent prowess.

“Well don’t wait around on my account,” he said. His voice was scratchy, but perfectly level. “I’m sure you have detection rates that need boosting.”

The policeman started into life and began fumbling up his trousers. He might not be very quick but he could recognise a dismissal when he heard one.

“You promise you won’t tell anyone?” he said when he was done. His hair flopped over his forehead in sweaty curls and his T-shirt clung to his damp torso like a second skin. He was the most beautiful man Mycroft had ever seen.

“Tell anyone?” he repeated. Tell anyone he had been intimate with this handsome young Adonis? To his surprise, he began to laugh, his shoulders shaking convulsively. There was nothing of mirth in the sound. It rolled from his chest in waves of deep black bitterness. The policeman lingered in the doorway, face twisted in doubt, clearly wondering if Mycroft had cracked up. “Who?”  Mycroft said to him, when he had recovered enough to speak. “Who in God’s name do you think I could I possibly tell?”

He rose to his feet, buttoned his fly, retrieved his briefcase and walked from the cubicle without a backwards glance.

 

* * *

 

In later years he was to reflect that the timing had been quite opportune. With the benefit of hindsight, once might almost say fortunate. Though they didn’t know it at the time, in many ways they were at the end of an era. London was undergoing its one of its periodic reinventions. In its clubs, cocaine was being eclipsed by a new drug called ecstasy and house music pounded from the speakers. The Greater London Council had been abolished and Canary Wharf was about to begin its transformation of the city skyline. In the wider world too, momentous changes were underway. Glasnost was in full flower. In two short years, the Berlin Wall would have fallen. In four, the Cold War would be over, redrawing the map of Europe and opening up new territories to the sphere of Western influence. All-in-all, an interesting time to be an up-and-coming young intelligence officer.

Public attitudes also were on the move. The disease which had killed so many gay men was starting to kill straight ones. Government took notice. On television, sombre adverts exhorted viewers not to die of ignorance, instilling a sense of doom into an entire generation. The cottages began to fall into disuse; casual sex transformed from a carefree indulgence into a potentially fatal undertaking in the minds of many. The Borough Councils in a frenzy of cost-cutting and gay panic hastened their decline, closing public lavatories and replacing them with coin-operated cubicles barely large enough for their stated purposes, let alone a moment of timeless passion.

When Mycroft next drove past Ealing Common, years later, a metal gate barred the entrance to the cottage and sycamore saplings had begun to grow up the steps. Through their spring foliage he could just make out the crest of the District of Ealing, picked out in mosaic by the door. István’s pride and joy.  In memory, the cottage took on an almost mythic quality. A relic of a less-complicated age. A place given over to anonymous pleasure, where status, career, and money were irrelevant. Release without responsibility; orgasm without commitment; sex for its own sake. He sighed and permitted himself a rare moment of nostalgia: for István, for the Giant, for the cab driver and the skin-head lovebirds, for the Duran Duran fan, and for Rat-tail, for the pretty policeman and for his much younger self. Then the traffic lights changed colour and his car pulled away, relegating the cottage and all of its regulars into the past.

 

* * *

 

Such philosophical musings however, were far from his mind when he left the cottage for the final time. All he knew then was that he had rejected one life and was about to embark upon another. He harboured no illusions about the price he would pay. At his interview the following week, when a pale man in horn-rimmed glasses asked whether he had ever had a sexual experience with another man, he had his answer ready.

“Well, I dabbled a little, of course, I think many of the undergraduates do. But in the end I decided it wasn’t really for me.”

Which was true. As far as it went.

The panel frowned and asked more questions, and made some notes. And perhaps the vetting process extended a few weeks longer than it might otherwise have done. But at the end of it they still came back and offered him a job, as he had known they would.  

Because, after all, they needed him almost as much as he needed them.

 


	6. Epilogue: May 2014, part 1

The air of Committee Room Six was dry and stale. Ranked rows of junior researchers drowsed in the public seating while the honourable member for one of the less interesting northern towns droned endlessly on about his constituents’ concerns. The rest of the committee seemed sunk in apathy. The deputy chair was attempting  _The Times_  Su Doku beneath his desk. Mycroft fixed a look of polite interest upon his face and permitted his mind to wander.

Greg Lestrade. A name after all this time. The pretty policeman had been under his nose for years and he’d never noticed. They’d even spoken on the telephone once or twice. Still the lapse was justifiable. It had been an age, decades probably, since he’d last thought of the cottage in Ealing. Beyond the usual security checks, he had never deemed it necessary to concern himself with Sherlock’s pet detective. His brother was always so possessive about his little friends and there was a lot to be said for picking one’s battles.

It wasn’t until he’d seen Lestrade in the dining room that his interest been piqued. In retrospect, the signs had been there from the start. Something about the turn of his head, his smile, had stirred memories but he’d put that down to the prompting of his libido. There was such a thing, after all, as having a type and he’d always had, well quite - he laughed inwardly the irony – a penchant for policemen. He’d assumed his sense of _deja vu_ was the consequence of that well-established preference. It was only when he’d thought to check Lestrade’s file that the memories had swung sharply into focus. In itself a six month stint in Vice was hardly conclusive, but then there was the outline of the faded red tattoo. Once he had seen that, he had known.

It was a shame really, that it had all had happened twenty-five years too late. He sighed, straightened in his seat and began sorting his notes into order. DCI Lestrade was not the man he had once been. The supple, slender-hipped Adonis of fond remembrance had matured into a middle-aged, rather thick-set man, his youthful sparkle dulled by the vicissitudes of time. His cock, too, had been something of a disappointment. Perfectly serviceable, but hardly the pinnacle of penile perfection that it had once been. Although… it was possible he was mistaken on that account. Hormones did strange things to the adolescent brain. At nineteen, he had considered himself quite grown up but from his current perspective he took a rather different view. In all likelihood PC Lestrade had been a perfectly normal young man and it was Mycroft’s memories which were playing him false.

In any case, spending the night had been a lapse of judgement; a mistaken attempt to rekindle a spark that had probably never been. Lestrade lacked polish - left his shoes in the middle of the room; fell asleep directly after sex; managed to leave every towel in the bathroom absolutely wringing wet and to cap it all off, had given Mycroft quite possibly the worst blowjob he’d ever had the misfortune to receive. Far too much tongue, far too little suction, a lamentable tendency to pause for breath at the most inopportune times and, it had to be said, a trifle cavalier with his teeth. Thank God for smart phones truly, otherwise the tedium might have overwhelmed him.

Still, he shouldn't be uncharitable. It hadn’t been all bad. In some ways, he shifted, crossed his legs and smiled as the fine wool of his suit scraped across his stubble-grazed thigh. In some ways the years had been kind. Lestrade's voice, for example. Decades of smoking and bawling at hapless probationers had deepened it from a nasal whine to a far more pleasant register, agreeably low and rumbly against the ear. And his hair. His hair Mycroft would concede, thinking ruefully of his own thinning tresses, was improved beyond measure. The short silver bristles had been soft and dense beneath his fingertips, inviting to the touch, by any reckoning infinitely preferable to the blond haystack he'd used to sport. And he’d changed his aftershave. His wife was probably to thank for that, though it hadn't happened without a fight. As he’d smoothed Lestrade’s jacket onto the hanger the following morning, he'd caught a whisper of a familiar fragrance and pressed his nose to the collar until he found it again. There, just below the left ear, he inhaled deeply, the unmistakable powdery-sweet scent of Kouros.

And had Lestrade remembered him? Mycroft was certain not. Their last encounter, after all, had been almost thirty years ago. Lestrade was not an expert dissembler, nor was he especially bright, though he had some talent for reading social cues. If he had recognised Mycroft he would have said. Besides, Mycroft was uneasily aware that their final meeting had not shown him in his best light. Time might heal all wounds, but it seemed unlikely Lestrade would have been quite so willing to engage had he remembered the details of their shared past.

And he had been willing. Very willing indeed. Here Mycroft had to duck his head and pretend great interest in an invisible thread upon his knee to hide his secret smile. For all his deficiencies of technique, there was no denying that Lestrade had been very nice in bed. Happy to be there, generous in his attention, open to suggestion and charmingly without shame. He’d launched himself at Mycroft’s cock with unfeigned joy, like a Labrador sighting a puddle. It had been quite some time since anyone had displayed so much enthusiasm at the sight of his naked flesh. It had been that unforced enthusiasm rather than any complicated technique which had moved Mycroft to gasp and quiver and, yes perhaps, in the final stages squeal. He wouldn't be averse, should the situation arise, to-

“Don’t you agree, Mr Holmes?”

Mycroft looked up. The eyes of the Select Committee were upon him. By his side the Secretary of State stirred uneasily.   
  
“I’m sorry, Madam Chair,” he said. “Could you repeat the question?”

 


	7. Epilogue: May 2014 part 2

Lestrade was in the shower when the doorbell rang. It was his rest day and he’d been pretty productive - lie in, fry up, couple of loads of washing, paid some bills, gone for a run. Now he was in the middle of getting ready to meet some friends down the pub. The sound didn’t register at first. Most people didn't use the bell. They'd send a text when they were in the vicinity and he’d go down and search them out. The flat was on the first floor above a row of shops. The entrance was sandwiched between Golden City Chinese and a Poundland. If you didn’t know what you were looking for, it wasn’t easy to find.

It was only when the bell rang for a third time, a long indignant trill, that he realised what it was. He stepped out of the shower and stood on the bath mat, scratching his head. He was tempted to ignore it, but it was always possible some old dear had collapsed outside and needed help. Most of his clothes were still drying. He pulled on the only clean things he had left and ran downstairs to see what all the fuss was about, ready to give someone a right bollocking if it turned out to be kids messing about. The stair carpet was a cheap industrial grade nylon which built up a hell of a static charge. He earthed himself on the door handle with a snapping blue spark and was still swearing as he pulled the door open to reveal Mycroft Holmes.

“Oh. It’s you,” he said. Not the most effusive greeting but he'd been caught on the hop. Mycroft was looking particularly dapper this evening in a light summer suit and a pale pastel shirt which wouldn’t have looked out of place at a garden party, while he was still wet from the shower and wearing his oldest clothes. Still there was something he’d promised himself he’d say if they met again and he wasn’t about to let his choice of outfit stop him. He backed up a step to give himself some height and a bit of moral authority, and pointed an accusing finger at Mycroft's chest. “You owe me an apology.”

He’d said the same thing to Sherlock on any number of occasion, though he might as well have saved his breath for all the good it did. He kept on saying it anyway in the hope that one day the message might sink in - it was like having a toddler, consistency was important - but even he would admit, the words had taken on something of a ritual flavour. It came as something as a shock therefore, when Mycroft recoiled a half step backwards and blanched.

“Ah,” he said. “I wasn’t sure if you-” He took in Lestrade’s expression and checked himself.

“Wasn’t sure if I what?”

“Wasn’t sure if you’d remembered,” said Mycroft, uncharacteristically abashed.

“Of course I bloody remember! I’m not likely to forget something like that, am I?”

“No, I suppose not, but you never said anything.”

“By the time I realised, you’d buggered off back to London.”

“I see.”

Lestrade folded his arms. There was a long pause. “Well?” he prompted, on more familiar ground now.

Mycroft sighed. “Where do I even start?”

Christ, it was like pulling teeth. He was as bad as Sherlock. He’d blame their parents, but according to John they were perfectly decent people. “You could _start_ by saying you’re sorry.”

“I’m…sorry?” said Mycroft. The word seemed alien to his lips. He looked up and down the busy street then stepped into the hallway and lowered his voice. “Truly. I am.”

“Yeah,” said Lestrade, “and so you should be.” Perversely, the apology had left him even more irate, his system awash with adrenaline denied a reasonable outlet. "My warrant card, my driving licence, my cash card.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “My phone. What if work had wanted to get hold of me?” No, that made him sound like he didn’t have any life outside work. “Or my kids? You can’t just-” Belatedly he noticed that Mycroft looked peculiar, his face working as though he’d just swallowed a fly. “Are you feeling all right?”

“You’re talking about your wallet,” Mycroft said.

“Yeah. My wallet. My phone. You took them out of my coat pocket.”

“At John and Mary’s wedding reception. Yes, I did.”

“I know you did. Why, what are you talking about?”

“Oh,” said Mycroft vaguely. “Something else. Never mind.”

Lestrade shook his head. Mycroft had regained his colour but he still seemed pre-occupied. He was staring at Lestrade now and his eyes had taken on an odd, glassy sheen. He glanced down to check his fly wasn’t open, but there was nothing about his outfit that warranted this level of attention - just a pair of old Levis and a tatty old T-shirt that had shrunk in the wash.

“You sure you’re feeling all right?” he said.

“Fine,” said Mycroft giving himself a little shake. “You were saying?”

Good point, he was letting himself get distracted. “You stole my phone.”

“A harsh word. I borrowed it. Temporarily.”

“You borrowed it 'temporarily' without my permission, which according to the law is theft.”

“I assure you, Detective Chief Inspector, I had no intention to permanently deprive you of your property. I found them in your pocket and thought I should keep them safe.”

Lestrade scowled, seconds away from bundling his unwanted visitor back onto the pavement and shutting the door. “Are you really here to argue the Theft Act with me? Because if you are, I’ve got better things to do.” Phone his mum. Do the dishes. Tidy his sock drawer.

Mycroft’s tone became conciliatory. “No. No, I'm not. What I did was very wrong, I do realise that.” He gave a small smile and pushed the door shut behind him, leaning against it. “You must let me make it up to you.”  
  
“Don’t worry, I will,” said Lestrade. “You could have just asked, you know. I might have said yes.” Belatedly he noticed Mycroft was sinking to his knees amidst the mess of flyers and taxi adverts and takeaway leaflets which littered the hallway floor. “Hey, what are you doing? No, hang on. You can’t just-” He was planning to finish the sentence by saying: “dodge the issue by giving me a blow job.” But he didn't think he was going to fool anyone with that line. Least of all himself.

Mycroft gave his hips a gentle shove and before he knew it he was sitting on the stairs. There were people walking up and down the street only a few feet away. He could see them through the panels in the door. The glass was textured but he could still make out their shapes. He sent up a quick prayer that nobody would turn their head, then forgot to worry about it. Mycroft had begun stroking him through his jeans, gently, using the back of his knuckle to graze the fabric, but it was getting his attention. He’d always liked this part. The foreplay, the anticipation; the certain knowledge that something good was about to happen. And he had thought about this, if he were honest, about having Mycroft on his knees. A bit. Sometimes. Late at night. The glass let a wavy, watery light into the hallway and as he looked down at Mycroft's bent head he was struck by a powerful sense of _déjà vu_. The sound of falling water. Rain against a window pane and the scent of pine. Where had he been?

“May I suck you?”

“What?” He blinked and the memory evaporated. Mycroft had sat back on his heels and was looking up at him expectantly. He replayed the last few minutes of their conversation. _You could have just asked_ , he’d said, and here Mycroft was - asking. “Yeah, go on then.”

“Oh, _good_ ,” said Mycroft, as though Lestrade had decided that actually, he would stay for afternoon tea.

His Levis were tighter than they had been, but between them they managed to wrestle them below his knees. Mycroft stared at his erection with a pleased smile and then took it into his mouth with an alacrity Lestrade found flattering. He closed his eyes and let himself feel it. Hot, wet mouth, smooth supple tongue, slow, insistent suction. Life was full of surprises. Five years ago he would have said he was happily married. A year ago, miserably divorced. Now here he was - DCI, pillar of the local community, former school governor - spending his Tuesday evening sitting on the stairs having his cock sucked by a man in a thousand pound suit. Next door in the Chinese takeaway, he could hear the rhythmic thump of a cleaver hitting a wooden chopping board. A car drove by, pumping out a heavy bass beat that shook the floor and rattled the glass in its frame. Mycroft relinquished his cock and began exploring, flicking his tongue across the soft skin of Lestrade’s balls with teasing little licks, before mouthing against them, breathing heat. He could keep doing that, Lestrade decided. Mycroft Holmes might be an complete prick but he could keep doing that for just as long as he liked. It had been a long time since anyone- here his train of thought skidded to a halt. Mycroft had begun delving further, his hot tongue probing insistently - behind and then - Lestrade’s eyes opened wide - between.

“Oh, you naughty boy,” he said.

Mycroft lifted his head. “Do you like that?”

“I do.”

“Roll over then.” He didn’t have to say it twice. Lestrade narrowly missed kicking him in the head in his haste to get turned around. Mycroft waited until he was settled, then ran possessive hands over Lestrade's thighs. “I want to rim you. Lick you out.”

“Yeah,” Lestrade said. “All right. You do that.”

He wondered if Mycroft intended to announce every sexual act before he began. On the one hand it was progress of a sort. On the other hand it kind of missed the point; it hadn’t been the sex he objected to, but the way Mycroft had arranged it. On the other, other hand, he liked it, the talking. The combination of plummy voice and the crude phrasing did good things for him.

Mycroft didn't need telling twice. He went to work with enthusiasm and for all his fastidious exterior he wasn’t in any way shy about where he put his tongue. Lestrade rested his sweaty cheek on his forearm, the cheap carpet rough against his skin, dust in his nose, and went with it. It felt damn good. He dropped his hand to his cock, needing to have a little play, nothing too heavy, just something to ease his growing tension.

Mycroft gave an exclamation and slapped his hand away. “Leave that; it’s mine,” he snapped and bit with sharp teeth on the tender skin of Lestrade’s upper thigh.

“Ow!”

Mycroft soothed the sting with his tongue in apology. “I wanted to suck you off,” he said in explanation.

“Suck me off, then,”  Lestrade urged. “Don’t hold back on my account. Suck me off if that’s what you want to do.”

They rolled him back over, slide-bumping him down the stairs as he turned. He ended up with one foot braced against the wall, the other leg half over Mycroft’s shoulder, the fine cloth prickly against the back of his knee. He was going to ache like a bastard in the morning but right now he didn’t care. Mycroft was sucking on him like he was afraid Lestrade might change his mind. He’d pulled his cock from his trousers and was using his spare hand to rub off. It was a nice little visual; a smartly dressed man with his thick cock poking obscenely from his trousers. He shifted his position so he could see Mycroft’s pumping fist. Oh, he was giving himself a proper seeing to, wasn't he? Fucking his hand like he meant it. Face red, cock swollen and a little vein throbbing at his temple. There was something about a man so hungry for your cock he couldn’t stop touching himself. _Deja vu_ hit again _._  The scent of pine and a dark figure kneeling before him. There had been a wood outside the back of his house when he was growing up, a copse really. Had he copped off with someone there? But there had been rain drumming against a window pane. He almost had it, but the insistent pulling on his cock made it impossible to concentrate. He was close now, he was really, really close.

“I’m coming,” he said. “I’m gonna-” The words were enough. Mycroft surged forward and sucked down his cock in its entirety, taking him to the hilt. “Come,” Lestrade managed before he suited actions to words.

 

* * *

 

“Mm,” Lestrade said. Somehow he'd ended up in a pile on the bottom step. Mycroft lay on the floor by his side, his head on Lestrade's thigh. He’d skinned his elbow on the way down and was going to have a lovely pair of matching carpet burns on his bum, but he didn’t care. He felt good; all his tensions melted away.

“Mm,” Mycroft agreed. His eyes were closed and he looked ineffably smug, pleased by Lestrade's reaction to his little party trick.

“So, why are you here?” he said after a few minutes.

Mycroft gave a small smile and pressed his mouth into Lestrade’s hip. “Oh, I was just passing.”

“Really?”

The smile against his hip grew wider. “No.”

Oh. That was something to think about. A ‘hook-up’ he thought the kids called it. He should probably resent Mycroft's assumption that he'd be both willing and available, but it was hard to work up a good head of righteous indignation with the echoes of his orgasm still running up and down his legs. “What do you want to do now then?”

“What do you suggest?”

“I’m going to the pub later, you can come if you want?” He couldn’t see it, though. The pair of them having a pint, watching the sport, then a quick game of pool and maybe a kebab on the way home.

To his relief, Mycroft was of a similar opinion. “No, I don't think I can.”

“Well, do you want to come up and have a cup of tea?” The flat was all right, it had a spare bedroom in case any of the kids wanted to stay over and private parking around the back, but he wasn’t sure he wanted it exposed to Mycroft’s all-seeing eye. It wasn’t exactly stylish. It had been furnished with the kind of black ash furniture everyone loved in the eighties before they’d realised it showed all the dust and looked a bit shit. And the house keeping left something to be desired. It wasn’t dirty exactly, but the remains of last night’s takeaway were still on the coffee table and his underwear was hanging off the radiators to dry. You didn’t have to be a Holmes to deduce that the occupant was a middle-aged bloke who lived alone and wasn’t very good at it.

Perhaps sensing his reservations, Mycroft shook his head.

“So what do you want to do?” Lestrade said.

“Can't we just stay here?”

“Here? We can if you like.”

There was a long pause.

“There is _something_ I should probably tell you,” Mycroft said.

That sounded ominous. “Is it going massively piss me off?”

“It might.”

“Will it keep, or do you need to tell me right this instant?”

Mycroft raised his head and gave him a thoughtful look. “It will keep.”

“Tell me some other time, then,” Lestrade decided. “I’m having a pretty good day so far.”

So they sat together on the stairs, Mycroft’s head pillowed against his thigh as they watched the people walk by outside. Not really in public, not really in private but in some strange in-between place. Nothing resolved between them, a lot that still needed to be said, but for the time being surprisingly content.

**Author's Note:**

> Some notes on references.
> 
> The remains of the cottage at Ealing Common are still there, though very overgrown:  
> https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5106581,-0.2891074,3a,75y,199.69h,69.67t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s1N3SUR-GLn5ef72KuXII2g!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
> 
> Fashion wise, Lestrade has modelled himself on George Michael. (Rest in Peace, George)
> 
> Kouros was the iconic 1980s blockbuster aftershave.
> 
> The Don’t Die of Ignorance Aids public awareness campaign was the one of the first government-sponsored national Aids awareness drives. It launched in 1987 and made a profound impression on the public psyche.  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMnb536WuC0
> 
> For anyone interested in details of life for gay men in London in the 70s and 80s, the Stradivarius website has a lot of first hand accounts: http://www.kemglen.talktalk.net/stradivarius/
> 
> Details of the Met police entrapment operations were taken from the 1984 Gay London police monitoring report: http://www.galop.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/galop-annual-report-1984.pdf
> 
> While homosexuality was decriminalised in 1967, the age of consent remained 21 until 1994. Gay men were barred from working in high security posts until 1991. 
> 
> In 2016, MI5 topped Stonewall's list of best UK employers for LGBT staff. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-35345515


End file.
